damn good yarn (not for knitting)
“Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
Growing up, this was one of my dad’s sage pieces of wisdom for how to live your life.
It sits right next to, “Don’t take no shit” in the John Lindsay Book of Motivational Quotes.
My dad was born in 1915. He would have been 105 this year.
I was born when he was 58.
When most men are winding down their lives and dreaming about retiring to the golf course, he was changing diapers at 2AM.
From an early age, I knew my time with him was limited.
It was nothing anyone sat me down and explained specifically, but as a kid, there are things you Know without needing to be told.
So I vowed to spend as much time with him as I could because I knew there would be a day when it would end. Sooner rather than later.
The thing dad and I did best together was going to the movies and talking about stories.
Flash Gordon. James Bond. Star Wars. Superman. Amadeus. Chariots of Fire.
My dad didn’t care if a story was “well-crafted.” He wanted “a damn good yarn.”
He loved Elmore Leonard. Tony Hillerman. Dick Francis. Robert B. Parker. Clive Cussler.
And he wasn’t unlike most readers.
Readers aren’t reading your stories searching the pages for the protagonist's fatal flaw.
Ask a reader when they’re done reading a book what they liked the best, more often than not they’ll say “The characters were interesting.”
We spend so much of our time around other writers, talking writing craft, analyzing stories, and doubting every word, that we forget our readers are just looking for a damn good yarn.
One of my clients told her BFF she was writing a novel, the BFF said, “Why would anyone read a novel about THAT?"
At a workshop, a client was told by a writer she admires that the characters in her novel were “too stupid to live.”
A brilliant writer tells me “This is crap. I’m a failure” every time she turns in pages.
Don’t let the bastards get you down.
This saying motivates me to work hard for my clients, to create an environment where they can create the stories of their dreams while learning the craft of writing a damn good yarn.
My father isn’t around anymore.
I can’t tell you how many times I want to pick up the phone and tell him about a novel I’m working with a client on.
He would love the stories I’m helping bring into the world.
He would love YOUR stories.
What’s your damn good yarn?
Hello!
My name is Jocelyn.
Story warrior, book lover, day dreamer, gardener, and creative. I help serious writers roll up their sleeves, get their novel ready for publishing, and reach readers. When I’m not elbow-deep in the story trenches, I’m outside world-building in my garden and battling weeds with my three criminal mastermind cats.
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